Morning Edition

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Waking up is hard to do, but it's easier with NPR's Morning Edition. Hosts Renée Montagne and Steve Inskeep bring the day's stories and news to radio listeners on the go. Morning Edition provides news in context, airs thoughtful ideas and commentary, and reviews important new music, books, and events in the arts. All with voices and sounds that invite listeners to experience the stories. Morning Edition, it's a world of ideas tailored to fit into your busy life.

Last month, a New Hampshire man stole a wallet from a woman's shopping cart, taking $90 and a GPS navigation device. Days later, the man knocked on the woman's door, having also found her address. He said he was sorry as he returned the items. Police say if they find him, they'll arrest him anyway.

To celebrate Wheel Turning Day, a group of Tibetan Monks in Massachusetts bought more than 500 lobsters destined for large pots of boiling water and put them in the cool waters of the Atlantic instead. The holiday commemorates Buddha's first sermon, when he spoke of karma; good deeds performed on this day are multiplied.

Michael Harvey has had a panoply of careers. He's been a lawyer and an investigative journalist; he's co-creator of A&E's real-cop TV series, Cold Case Files; and, these days, Harvey is also writing crime novels that show off the grit and the glitz of Chicago.

Food giant Cargill is recalling 36 million pounds of ground turkey due to suspected contamination with a strain of salmonella that's resistant to antibiotics. With dozens of people reported ill — and one death — this certainly isn't the biggest foodborne illness outbreak. But it's forcing debate on the common yet controversial practice of dosing farm animals with daily antibiotics.

At age 19, Bojana Jovanovski is a veteran traveler - the world's 53rd-ranked tennis player. She picked up plane tickets for this week's Mercury Insurance Open in Carlsbad. After several plane changes, she arrived in Carlsbad, New Mexico. And she found herself standing at the airport with her luggage all alone. Only when she called to ask why her ride didn't pick her up did she find the tournament was in Carlsbad, California.

There were two Twitter feeds arguing over which was being written by the real peacock that escaped from a New York City zoo Tuesday: BirdOnTheTown and CentralPeacock. The squawking quickly became moot; the missing peacock flew back to the Central Park Zoo on Wednesday morning.

Seattle would seem the ideal setting for noir crime novels, what with the rain, the port and the gloomy Scandinavians. But it's not as noir as it used to be. J.B. Dickey, owner of the Seattle Mystery Book Shop, says downtown Seattle was once a lot seedier. "It was more about sailors on leave and tattoo joints," he says. "And the Donut Shop!"

The Donut Shop? Tres noir, says Dickey. "People who were here during the '70s remember the Donut Shop as being a very notorious place."

Tiger Woods returns to golf this week at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, Ohio. It's his first start in 11 weeks. Steve Inskeep speaks with Golf Digest's Ron Sirak about Woods' recent struggles and what to expect in this tournament.

Alarm is spreading through international markets as Italy, the eurozone's third largest economy, risks being sucked into the debt crisis. After a long silence, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi addressed Parliament — and insisted that the country's economy is strong, while rebuffing opposition calls for his resignation.

A partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration, prompted by a political dispute, is adding to the country's debt. This month alone, that shutdown will cost the Treasury $1 billion in uncollected airline ticket taxes.

The shutdown is happening because of a labor dispute, a long-standing rivalry and a disagreement over subsidizing small airports. It's not clear when it will all be resolved now that members of Congress are leaving Washington, D.C., for their summer recess.

A partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration, prompted by a political dispute, is adding to the country's debt. This month alone, that shutdown will cost the Treasury $1 billion in uncollected airline ticket taxes.

The shutdown is happening because of a labor dispute, a long-standing rivalry and a disagreement over subsidizing small airports. It's not clear when it will all be resolved now that members of Congress are leaving Washington, D.C., for their summer recess.

People sometimes spend six months hiking the Appalachian trail, but Jennifer Pharr Davis hiked the whole thing in record time: from Maine to Georgia in just under 46 1/2 days, beating the old record by about a day. She walked more than 2,000 miles, about 47 miles per day — and spotted 36 bears.

Longtime fan King Abdullah II is putting up $1.5 billion for the Star Trek-themed park, beckoning fellow Trekkies to a place where few have gone before: a town on the Red Sea. It's a new frontier for a king who's actually been on board the starship USS Voyager — during a cameo on the show in the '90s.

With the fight over the U.S. debt ceiling finally over, investors are free again to focus on all the economic challenges that lie ahead, but they are finding little reason to celebrate. Stock markets around the world fell sharply on Tuesday, skipping the "relief rally" that customarily follows the resolution of a crisis.

In the United States, signs of a serious economic slowdown had been building up, though with attention focused on the debt-ceiling debate, the news had apparently not yet sunk in.

The big three automakers continue to see growth in their recovery but last month sales hit a bit of a bump. The overall U.S. market was dragged down by sluggish sales of Hondas and Toyotas. Companies are still struggling to work out problems with their supply chains following Japan's earthquake and tsunami in March. NPR's Sonari Glinton reports.

Just a few days ago, the political system seemed completely stuck as the Aug. 2 debt-default deadline approached. Now the deadline has arrived, and it seems likely that President Obama will sign a debt limit extension. NPR's Ron Elving talks with Steve Inskeep about the path Congress took to get to the agreement.